Weight Loss, Sharing and Pampering Update

 

A Bucketful of Roses for my Flickr Friends (Photo credit: Theen …)

I have been making sure that I have at least three (3) servings of a calcium rich food in my meals each day along with Vitamin D.  We women need more calcium and vitamin D for our bone loss issues, especially just before, during and after perimenopause and menopause years. It was unfortunate to watch as my mother suffered from osteoporosis and I really did feel so bad for her while suffered in so much pain. I believe it is because we didn’t realize how important it was to have enough calcium in our diets as we age. My mom was a huge coffee lover and so she drank not just a few cups of coffee each day but at least a pot of coffee every single day without missing a beat. I am sure she was not aware of the fact that coffee depletes the calcium from our bodies. So to top it off she wasn’t a great yogurt eater nor did she eat enough green vegetables. I along with her was unaware and although I did like to drink lots of milk and eat yogurt and green vegetables, it was not enough and so I did not meet the daily requirements my body needed, nor did I take any calcium supplements to make up the difference. But, in today’s world there is so much knowledge available to everyone and you are exposed so much more of this kind of  information in the media then ever before.

I think my going to see a nutritionist was one of the best things I ever did, because doing so caused me to turn over a new leaf and to see that my meals were much more carefully thought out and more nutritious. I know the key to better health is prevention. I just wish I had the information I have now a few years back. Right now I am suffering with the awful debilitation of arthritis pain, stiffness and slowness and it started at an early age. I cannot do much and whatever I do takes forever because your movements become slower, where as I used to sprint and move quickly. OMG! I have become a turtle LOL! Quick movements are a thing of the past, LOL! I have to really be careful nowadays. I think all of these health issues may have been avoided with a much better thought out diet. I just wish I had been paying better attention to my body beforehand because I don’t believe I would have arthritis at all if I did. But no use in crying over spilt milk as my mother use to say, it’s all about what I can do for myself now.

I have started incorporating more of the Omega 3’s that stops inflammation.  I found out that inflammation is the cause of all disease and Omega 3 stops it. Sometimes I find myself saying to myself how I wish I knew all of this beforehand. Gosh if I had been taking those at a high dose I might have never had to experience these types of problems and illnesses. So I am hoping and working very hard to try reversing the damage already done to my body if that is at all possible or to stop any further damage to my system then I am already experiencing. When I look at Montell Williams and how hard he worked to cure himself of his illnesses, I am motivated that one day I will do the same thru nutrition and exercise. Once I listened to Deepak Chopra saying that our bodies’ cells and organs renew over a period of time and well I would love to believe this is true. After all he is a medical doctor, he should know this.

Pampered (Photo credit: A. Carter)

Well if I could sound the alarm, warning all younger women to pay attention to your body and actually help someone avoid these pit falls, I would feel incredible for sharing this. Younger women trust me you don’t want all these illnesses to take over your body and rob you of your ability to function as well as you could. Not eating right and skipping exercise only robs you of the ability to live life to the fullest and limits you. I know life can hand you some very distracting frightful moments and take you off track or you may not even be aware of these things, but I say stay focused and never forget to care for your self first and fore most, then you will have the energy and ability to care for those in your immediate circle who need you.

Right now I am still learning and finding out what exactly are all of the calcium rich foods that I should have been eating and exactly how much to eat per day, also I recently learned that there are calcium rich herbs too, well who knew! This is great news to me because now I can easily drink some of my calcium requirements without added calories and have it between meals.  I’m also in the process of adding them to my diet as well. I hope to share later as I incorporate them into my diet.

lovely roses (Photo credit: elbfoto)

All of my physical therapists I ever had advised me that I should walk often and as much as possible to delay the possibility of winding up in a wheel chair. Also that physical movement and stretching exercises helps with stiffness and keeps your joints supple and from literally locking up and stitching together (the stitching together part seems scary to me, I definitely do not want this) getting worse and more added pain. I am finding out how my body works and that if I over do anything my body locks up like a vice grip (I call it the mummy or walking on stilts moments) LOL! That’s when I really cannot move and I must share here it is the worst pain ever! So I have to know my limit and stop! Just the fact that it doesn’t take much to bring me to this state is so depressing at times, knowing that I cannot do much of anything at all as well as I used to be able to do in the past gets to me. I start to feel like I am less of the person I once was and all because of disease. I am always pushing myself to the limit trying to strengthen myself more. It’s really hard to do things that I used to do very easily in the past. So it is very important to have a spiritual life, positive mind to help produce good thoughts in order to have an upbeat spirit and personality. No one wants to be around a depressed, whiny, sad, complaining person trust me. So I steer as far away from being that kind of person as much as possible.

So here I am fighting for my life with the hopes that things will get better one day. One thing I loved about my parents was that they always was a great source of encouragement to me, even today I can still hear them in my mind pushing me and encouraging me along the way. I can still hear their soft loving tones saying “you can do it if you will only try.”

So here lately I have become less hungry which is so good so that it helps with my weight loss, I now eat only two (2) meals a day instead of three (3), so to make sure that I meet my daily calcium and vitamin D requirements, I make sure I have at least two (2) calcium rich portions on my plate at each meal. I also try to remember to go outdoors for at least 15 minutes each day for some natural rays from the sun for vitamin D besides taking a 1,000 mg vitamin D supplement each day. Wow I had no idea how important vitamin D is to bones. I am thinking it may be more important then vitamin C but I take vitamin C as well. I am so glad that the nutritional world has come across these super foods that are supposed to really do a lot more in providing your body with the daily requirements.  Salba Seed is one of those super foods.

Français : 2 roses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So for tonight’s dinner we made and had Roti with Salba Seed and it came out absolutely delicious. I eat it with at least one cup of plain yogurt spread inside. Oh and yes I am so happy that we finally have become better at making a softer Roti.  My husband is so wonderful because he pretended all the time to love those hard Roti’s we made at first while learning how to make them. I was so pleased today because we could fold the Roti’s and they were so incredibly soft and delicious.

When I used to live in New York there was this wonderful Jamaican restaurant I enjoyed, I would stop in and buy Roti and their Jamaican Style Oxtails and Peas and Rice. I admired how well they cooked these dishes among all the other delicious dishes they made like Jerk Chicken that I liked as well. I used to promise myself that one day I would learn and successfully make these dishes myself, because I always found that their food was so expensive and they were always skimpy on the oxtails, so the day I learned to make Jamaican Oxtails was one of the best days of my cooking life.

I had this friend in New York, many, many years back, who came to know how much I loved Jamaican foods so one day she came to my home back then and taught me how to make the Jamaican Style Oxtails and the Peas and Rice. Her husband was from Jamaica and he really was a great cook so she learned a lot from him. So after a few times of making it, I added my own little twists to the dish and so from that day forward I had learned to make the best Oxtail in the state of New York LOL! My family lined up just to get a plate of my Oxtail! They all fell in love with this dish. I used to make some for my mother whenever she visited and sometimes for my brother who used to come by for Sunday dinners. They got so that they requested I make some each time they would come visit. My husband was the very eager beaver when it came time to shop for the ingredients. Once cooked you could hardly hear a word come out of his mouth. He was into eating and in heaven till the last morsel was gone.

So each time I cooked oxtail, it there would never be any leftovers and if at any time I made a large amount to freeze for another time there would never be any left once reheated and served. My Oxtail recipe is one that I will never give away. LOL!

So for dinner the Roti’s with Salba Seed was a great idea. I actually purchased the Salba Seed to mix in home made baked bread machine sometimes. Salba bread loaves are hard to find in local supermarkets and where ever it is sold it is very expensive, something like seven dollars ($7.00) or eight dollars ($8.00) a loaf. So I never really thought much about making it with the roti, until a light bulb went off in my head today. I began to think how much easier it would be also less time consuming if I mixed it into the Roti.

 

Dainty Roses (Photo credit: cobalt123)

So when my husband ate one roti then another then asked “will you be eating this last one” LOL! I just laughed because I knew that I was onto something delicious and we will make it again and again. I was so happy he enjoyed it, because actually I wasn’t in the mood to go thru the trouble of baking any bread today from scratch in my bread machine, because although the machine does all the work it still takes too long to wait for the machine to mix, knead and bake it. You aren’t doing any work with the bread machine at all though. Also another reason to add the Salba Seed is because of all the good news I have read and heard about these seeds which are from the Chia Seed family. Salba Seed is supposed to be triple rich with Omega 3’s, Fiber, Calcium and other nutrients. See my Roti with Salba Seed Recipe in the next post.

ESTELA, Masaje facial (Photo credit: estelabelleza)

Pampering: Facial

I have some cold yummy yogurt I saved to give myself a quick ten minute facial.

Ingredients:

Yogurt Face Mask

2 tablespoons of plain yogurt (yogurts lactic acid is a natural hydroxi acid for oily/combination skin)

1 teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice

(I just mixed two (2) tablespoons of plain yogurt with a teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice in one small bowl.)

Baking Soda Face Scrub

1 tablespoon of arm and hammer baking soda

1 teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice

Water as needed to make a paste

(Then I mixed baking soda and a little fresh squeezed lemon juice together to a paste in another tiny bowl.)

Shea Butter Face Cream (prepared in advance)

1 Jar of Natural 100% Shea Butter

½ cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Few drops of Lavender Essential Oil

(This Shea Butter is hard as a rock so I slightly melt the Shea butter in a pan on the stove and pour in the olive oil. I don’t allow the Shea Butter to melt totally but leave some chunks in there and mash it and whip it with the olive oil and you have a wonderful inexpensive luscious good face cream, you can also add 100% natural coconut oil, I mix it in as well if I have some on hand, I also put a few drops of lavender essential oil in it if I have some on hand.)

First I wash my face with a delicious creamy moisturizing soap, rinse then while wet applied the baking soda mix and gently scrub my face and lips, then rinse really well, and then dry. Then I apply the yogurt mixture all over my face, (watch out for your eyes, the lemon juice will burn your eyes so rinse your eyes with cold water if you get some in your eyes) let it set on my face for about 10 minutes. Rinse and wash it off this yogurt mixture totally with warm then cold water, then dry. Then I apply my Shea butter and olive oil mixture to my face and Burt’s Bees lip balm to my lips for the night. Ohh Ahh my face is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Hooray! This is a done deal.

Flower fun (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

In the past I used to use Dove and Oil of Olay and even Mary Kay Products on my face, but I found something that works just as good and is less expensive, especially for preventing little pimples from appearing. I now use Cetaphil Antibacterial Gentle Cleansing Bar and the bar lasts a very long time if you put it in a portable soap dish, because the soap softens into a creamy mixture over time so I just spread a little onto my face cloth. I very rarely break out with pimples on my face if ever; I have used this soap for many years now and my skin is never dry or too oily. It’s really a great face soap.

Pampering every once in a while is such a very important part of my healing process, it’s just a little something I can do for myself that does not require I spend a lot of money and also something that is easy enough that I can do for myself. I cannot afford to visit these fancy pampering salons so this is like the next best thing. I also cannot afford all of the fancy facial creams sold out there. So in using natural things you will always find that it’s a good thing. Plus who wants all those chemicals on their skin, I know I don’t.

So if I remember to take a few moments out of my life to pamper myself as much as possible it helps to make the rough times seem not so bad at all. Sort of like a support system for myself. It feels so good and it’s a helpful part of learning to love you thru the rough times.

Dr. Deepak Chopra (Photo credit: Yahoo Inc)

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